Pianoply
Four accomplished pianists, four acoustically distinct venues, five grand pianos. This evening of piano performances brought together some of the leading soloists working today in new music to explore their instrument’s full color spectrum in EMPAC’s complete range of acoustic environments. Performing on grand pianos of varying sizes and manufactures, Pianoply examined virtuosity through the lens of situation and setting.
Pianoply featured soloists Vicky Chow, Stephen Drury, Mabel Kwan, and Marilyn Nonken, performing on a selection of pianos: a 9’ Hamburg Steinway, 9’ New York Steinway, 7’ Fazioli, 6’ 7” Bösendorfer, and 7’ 6” Yamaha pianos.
The audience was guided through all of EMPAC’s venues—the reverberant warmth of the Concert Hall, the intimacy of the Theater, the detailed crispness of Studio 1 and the enveloping diffusion of Studio 2—to explore the sonic properties of contemporary repertoire performed through particular instruments placed in particular spaces.
PROGRAM
PROGRAM
Vicky Chow - Studio 2
Michael Gordon - Sonatra (2004)
Stephen Drury - Studio 1
John Cage - Etudes Australes, Book I (1974-75)
Marilyn Nonken - Theater
Joshua Fineberg - Tremors (1996)
Tristan Murail - La mandragore (1993)
Claude Vivier - Shiraz (1977)
Mabel Kwan - Concert Hall
Evan Johnson - three reversed movements, to bring destroyed objects back to life (2014)
Eliza Brown - Between Clouds (2012)
Rebecca Saunders - Shadow (2013)
Gerardo Gandini - Eusebius, Four Nocturnes for One Piano (1984)